


The Electric Kid

by lives_on_chai



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Depression, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Existentialism, M/M, Other YouTubers will appear, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Use, Smoking, Takes place in 2012, Young Adult Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-10 11:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4390172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lives_on_chai/pseuds/lives_on_chai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-year old Dan Howell has just returned to live with his parents in Wokingham after an incident happened at Dan's school, University of Manchester, a few months previous. </p><p>Depressed and indifferent towards life, Dan spends most of his days either on the computer, spacing out at his job, or just spacing out period.</p><p>After he starts going to a recovery group in London, Dan meets some people who he might be able to connect with for the first time in a long time.</p><p>However, his desperate urges to feel something might tamper with his one shot of making it out of this Hell that he's built for himself.</p><p>***Update as of 7/11/16: this story has been DISCONTINUED. Read update to learn why***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello people! I'm lives_on_chai and welcome to my new story. This is the first fanfic (and phanfic) I've ever published so that's pretty cool and exciting. I did quite a bit of research for this fic to make sure that everything I'll be talking about is as accurate as possible, so I'll try to make it as such. Please review if you'd like as that'd be chill. Alright that's about it.  
> Enjoy!

1

 

     It was the first Monday of March when Dan woke up.

     This day was one he was absolutely dreading, but he knew he had to do it. Mostly he had to do it because he was told to.

     _It’ll be a good opportunity for you to share your story with others like yourself,_ is what his therapist had told him.

     _Others_ like him? That was rich. He felt as though he was being segregated from a part of humanity that didn’t have problems like him. What were they considered? _Okay_? _Fine_ , maybe?

     His parents had obviously agreed with her, telling Dan that he should surround himself with people he could share experiences with.

     If you’d ask Dan, he’d probably tell you it was complete and utter bollocks, but if it was going to satisfy them then he’d do it. He’d been the cause of more than enough struggles these past few months, why push another thing at them?

     He’d set his alarm for eight, but had pressed the snooze button once or twice before finally getting out of bed, grumbling as he did so.

     Like he predicted, Dan immediately regretted choosing to go to the ten-thirty group.

     Dan usually departed from his bed at eleven everyday, never this early. However, he badly wanted to get this whole thing over. The earlier he went, the better.

    Dan grabbed his phone off of his nightstand, and quickly pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans, like he did everyday. He then selected a shirt out of his closet, deciding to go with a grey one, and making sure it was long sleeved so it’d cover his arms.

     He’d agree that his outfit was rather bland, but that was his goal. He wanted as much attention away from him as possible.

     He then walked to his bathroom, ready to start his morning “ritual” if you will. He began by taking a piss, and next took out his straightening iron to do his hair. Dan had naturally wavy brown hair, which he’d hardly ever let see the light of day since he’d hit high school.

     As Dan let the iron warm up, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. The dark rims that he normally had under his eyes looked even more prominent, and his skin felt deathly oily, but he didn’t have much time to take a shower. He raked one hand through his curls, and frowned.

     He felt and looked disgusting, what else was new?

     He tore his brown, tired-looking eyes away from the mirror and touched the iron to see if it was ready. He pulled his hand away quickly so he wouldn’t burn himself, and proceeded to start straightening his hair.

     He felt satisfied as he watched the curls diminished under the heat.

    Soon enough all the curls were gone, and he prepped his hair even more, spraying it, making sure each hair was in its proper place.

     Dan realized at a young age that you can’t change much about yourself, but you can change your hairstyle as much as you please. Dan always made it his mission to make his hair look good, even if nothing else did.

     He then brushed his teeth, rolled on his deodorant, and sprayed cologne all over himself to make up for the missed shower.

    Over all, he thought he looked okay today. Normally okay wouldn’t even result in him leaving the house, but he thought looking okay would be enough. Besides, who’d he need to impress? He was fucked up enough as it was.

     Once he had finished up, Dan went down stairs and into the kitchen to get something quick to eat. He realized that he shouldn’t have brushed his teeth first, but screw it.

     When he’d entered the kitchen, he saw his mum was up, making her self a cup of coffee. His dad had already left to go to work by then.

     His mum had taken a lot of days off lately so she could "spend time" with Dan, but Dan thought that was just a nicer was of saying "I'm helicoptering around you, and I’m hardly letting you out of my sight you bloody twat."

     “Hey mum.” She let out a startled noise, and turned around, eyes wide.

     “Dan, hun, you gave me a fright. I didn’t expect you up this early.” She gave him a weak smile, calming down. At least she hadn’t dropped her coffee.

     “Yeah, I decided to go to the early meeting instead.” He said, tentatively walking over to the cabinet to get out some cereal.

    To say things had been awkward since Dan had come to live at home would be quite an understatement. Dan was always hesitant now being around his parents, as they now knew the whole truth of what’d been really going down at Uni these past few months.

     He felt completely naked. Nothing was a secret now.

     His mum got out the milk for him, swinging it on to the counter as Dan poured out the Lucky Charms. He let out a "thanks".

     "Oh I see, that’s good then. I'm glad you decided to go to that." She smiled again.

     She was always smiling recently, probably to try and hide what she was feeling on the inside. He didn't know why she did it. His dad surely didn't try to hide his distaste in what Dan had done, why should she? Sure, he was living with them and everything, but that didn't change anything. She'd rightfully freaked out when she found out, now she was trying to pretend it didn't really happen.

     Maybe it was more about helping Dan himself though, Dan considered. As though a bullshit smile from his mum could somehow "brighten up" his depressing days.

     Dan had always had bouts of depression growing up, but after he’d returned home, it’d struck again, this time worse. Nothing he could do help the emptiness he felt, and soon enough he really stopped caring. He just became... Indifferent.

     He tried to brush it off, and began eating his cereal. "Me too."

     He watched his mum, her eyes pierced and mouth tight as if she wanted to say something, but instead she took a sip from her cup of coffee.

     They ate and drank in silence. It wasn't too bad, Dan decided. There'd been a lot of silence between the two of them as of late, his family as a whole actually. He was getting used to it though. Dan couldn't tell if that was sad or not, but decide to just push it to the back of his head.

      He quickly finished his cereal, looking at the clock to read how much time he had.

 _8:43_. Shit, he had to catch his bus.

     “Crap, I’ve got to go mum, or I’ll miss the bus.” After some debate about how Dan should get to the meeting, Dan’s parents agreed that it’d be alright if Dan took the bus to London and then straight back home once the meeting had wrapped up.

     They did want to give the boy _some_ air to breath, just not much. Not by a long shot. He hadn’t instilled that much trust within them yet, but London was still a large step and he was thankful for it.

     “Okay hun, don’t forget your jacket!” Dan already had one arm in once she’d said that, and shoved his trainers on after that.

     “I gotcha mum, see you later, love you.”

     “Love you!” He knew she really meant it, but he was sure somedays she was just going to breakdown and cry after she said it. He shut the door before he could find out.

     And Dan was off, walking along the pavement to the bus station.

     It was a rather pleasant day in Wokingham. The clouds looked rather lit up by the sun, and it wasn’t too cold outside. 

     It felt good. He hadn’t been outside much recently, only to either go to the therapists once a week or to go to a part-time job at the local Tesco he’d acquired so that he wouldn’t suffocate from being around just his family all the time.

     He approached the bus stop, rocking back and fourth on his heels as he did. He’d been finding hard at times to sit still lately, constantly needing to fidget with something or other. He was tense, and he knew it.

     Dan reached into the left side pocket of his jacket and pulled out his box of Tic Tac’s, popping some into his mouth. These little suckers had been keeping Dan’s fidgetiness and constant need of something to consume at bay.

     He kept watch on the street till the bus finally came to view.

     He got on the bus, bought a day pass, and sat down in the back of the bus.

     In all reality, he would’ve liked to sit up on the top level, really see London, as it wasn’t everyday he got to go, but he’d just have to settle for the bottom level.

     There’d be a lot of people up there, and he didn’t want the attention, after all.

     He stared out the window as the bus began to move, the start of their hour and forty minute commute to London.

     He watched as the quaint village and crammed houses that lined the streets fade to country.

     Dan felt the Tic Tac’s in his mouth dissolve, and quickly took out his pack to pop in another.

     He reached into the pocket of his pants, and pulled out his phone. He dug around in his remaining pockets till he produced a pair of headphones as well.

     Dan hadn’t been using his phone that much, which is rather hard to believe for a twenty year old who’s had a short attention span as of recent, but Dan hadn’t been using his phone that much.

     The reason was due to his old friends from Uni trying to contact him, trying to reason with him or bug him and some of them even to bully him to find out what had happened.

    Dan and his parents had finally managed to change his number a few weeks back, but Dan was still trying to avoid going on all of his social media sites, terrified of what his former mates might be saying about him.

     He mostly now just used his phone and laptop to look up stupid videos online or to listen to music.

     Dan decided to listen to music on his bus trip so he wouldn’t feel so bored and alone. He put in his headphones, and put his iPod on shuffle.

     He didn’t really care about what song he was listening to, he just really wanted to zone out.

     Relatively that’s what most of Dan’s time was spent doing now; zoning out.

     At home. At work. At therapy. None of it mattered really.

     His day-to-day life had become obsolete. The colors of all the days he’d been trapped at his family home in Wokingham bled together, and everyday felt like a continuation of the one previous to that.

     He felt nothing for it.

     Yet that was all he wanted to do. _Feel_ something, really _feel_ it.

     He gripped his right arm, another force of habit he seemed to have gained since arriving back in Wokingham.

     It was mainly for his protection. He didn’t want anyone to touch his right arm, fearing what they could see if his shirt rode up any.

     Also because of his urge. The urge to fill that emptiness The urge that he had, that Tic Tac’s couldn’t possibly fill but they had to. He didn’t want to end up where he had before, and he certainly wasn’t going to.

     Before Dan even knew it, the bus had come to a halt. He looked up as he saw all the passengers disembarking.

     _The music must’ve helped_ , Dan thought. He should use that method more often, relieve some of his built up anxiety.

     He got up and exited the bus along with the other passengers.

     He checked his time, _10:21_. He was making good time.

     Dan took to the streets of London. He was using his phone’s GPS to help him find the place, which by his calculations shouldn’t have been too far from the stop.

     He continued walking along, holding his phone in his right hand while his left hand held his right arm.

     He nearly walked into quite a few people, who scowled at him, but he kept himself focused. He wouldn’t have tried to pick anything with them anyway; he wasn’t that kind of person.

     His GPS told him that he would be approaching the destination in 31 feet, on the left.

     He looked on the other side of the street to see a bleak, grey building with a set of stairs and a railing. In front there was a small sign, though bright green sign, which Dan could make out.

     It said “‘Seminary of Sobriety; Support Group for Recovering Addicts’- Meetings Today, New Members Welcomed!”

     _Well, this must be the place_ , Dan thought, _or, rather, this must be_ my _place_.     Out of the corner of his eye he saw the crosswalk turned green, and he walked to the other side.

     He gripped his arm a bit tighter.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people! I'd like to say how surprised I am at how many people read the first chapter and gave it kudos and my one review and all, so thank you for that.  
> Okay so here's chapter two, it took me a week to update because this chapter is fairly long so I've been writing it over the period of this week. Hope you all like it, review if you'd like and all that jazz.  
> Enjoy!

2

     The inside of the building was exactly how Dan had pictured it; grey and bleak, what else was new around here? It was just almost just as cold inside as it was outside, so he kept his jacket on.

     He walked slowly down the corridor, fear and anxiety increasing with each step.

      When Dan been first told by his therapist that he should attend this meeting, his initial worry had been if he’d see someone he knew there.

     Point, most of his friends (ex-friends now) were back in Manchester but there was always that slight chance he’d know someone. Kids from secondary school maybe, or some down and out person he might’ve assisted at Tesco, any familiar face really.

      He’d assured himself over and over again that this probably wouldn’t happen, and that his therapist had specifically picked this group because one, it wasn’t in Wokingham, and two, it was a small group, unlike AA, etc.

      Still, the nerves of “what if” got the best of Dan, and at that moment, he felt like he could be sick.

    Suddenly, he heard two voices behind him.

     “… Can we seriously go shopping after this?”

     “If you made like three tweets about this then of course Peej, you’re in too deep.”

     “I just want a trampoline in my bedroom.”

     Obviously, Dan thought, they were engaging in some mindless banter. He slowed his pace even more, and listened in.

     “What would Ringo say about this?”

     “Well what would Robert De Nero say?”

     “Nothing, he’d probably just- hold off there mate, hey!”

      Dan froze. Was the “hey” directed at him?

      Dan decided to turn around, holding his right arm even closer to his body.

     He saw two guys, who couldn’t have been much older than him, standing there. They both had brown hair, except the taller of the two’s hair was swooshed to the side, while the shorter one’s was curlier. They both stared at him, making Dan feel very uncomfortable.

     “Are you here for the meeting?” The taller asked.

     “Uh…” Dan began, immediately feeling stupid. Why couldn’t he just answer the question? “Yeah, I am.”

      The same guy nodded. “Alright, well, the meeting’s this way if you didn’t know.”

      Dan looked to see where the other guy was looking, realizing there was another hall on the left side of the corridor.

     “Oh- okay, thanks.”

     The guy nodded before him and the curly-headed one continued down the other hall. Dan waited a little bit before following after them. He didn’t feel like starting up a conversation with anyone at that moment.

     As he walked down the equally bleak hall, he began to hear voices. He followed them, soon coming across the room. Just like out front, there was also a sign announcing the meeting only this time it was a blue poster.

      _Ooo, a cool color scheme, way to play up the depressing sham factor you guys_ , Dan thought.

     He decided to enter, just to get everything over with. Upon entering, he gazed upon the room and all the people in it. As expected, there weren’t that many people, maybe about fifteen at the most. One thing Dan instantly took notice of was that they all looked fairly young, probably another reason why his therapist had recommended this specific group.

     Most of the people were all in small, congregated groups. Dan quickly spotted the guys from the hallway talking to a rather short, slightly broad, brunette woman.

     Dan didn’t know what to do, or where to go really, so he just kind of stood there. He felt really awkward and out of place, but what could he do?

     Soon, he spotted a tall man with bright red hair, a black backpack, and black coat enter the room.

     “Sexual-ness!” He yelled. Everyone instantly turned around to look at him, and laughed. This guy must’ve been the group leader. 

     “Fantastic, now that I’ve got all of your guys’ attention, lets begin. Grab a chair, form the circle.”

     Everyone started over to the chair rack in one of the corner, and Dan followed. He waited, till someone tapped his shoulder.

     He turned to see a shorter guy with dirty-blonde hair, and glasses. He was also holding two chairs.

      “Hi, here, I got a chair for you. You new?”

      It wasn’t so much of a question as it was just a statement, but Dan brushed it off. He was so grateful that someone was being nice to him.

      Dan took one of the chairs from him. “Thank you so much, and uh, yeah I’m new.”

      The guy chuckled. “It’s no problem, we all do what we can do help each other out. What’s your name?”

      “Dan.” Dan replied.

     “I’m Charlie, welcome to our little crew of misfits and gormandizers. If you don’t know what that means, it basically just means we like to eat a lot of Krispy Kreme and biscuits after the meetings.”

      Dan let out a short laugh, something he’d only done when watching YouTube videos as of recent.

      He decided that Charlie was a good guy; he seemed really kind and more than accepting. It was nice to talk to have a conversation with someone other than his parents and customers for once.

      Charlie nodded towards the circle. “How about we go join the troops and get this show on the road?”

     Dan smiled. “Sure.”

     Maybe this group thing wouldn’t be so awful after all.

     Dan and Charlie walked over to the circle together, setting their chairs down next this one petite girl with extremely curly hair. Charlie greeted her as “Carrie” and she said a “hello” in response. Dan sat down and resumed holding his right arm.

      Once everyone was settled, the guy with red hair took his seat as well, his back towards the entrance. “Everybody good?”

      Murmurs of “yeah” went around. 

     “Okay, whelp, can we at least scoot closer together because it’s fucking freezing in here and the warmth of our arms rubbing up against each other will surely warm us up?”

      “Everything’s an innuendo isn’t it, Ben?”

      Dan looked to see who was speaking, realizing it was one of the guys from the hallway, the one with the swoosh hair.

      “Dammit Chris is everything a sarcastic comment?”

     Chris, slyly smiled at Ben, mouth closed still. “I’d say yes, but it’d probably be sarcastic.”

     “Good answer, Chris. Alright, scoot.”

     Everyone laughed at the exchange before moving their chairs closer together as requested.

     “Settled?” Ben asked.

     Again, there were some “yeah's” and “yes’s.”

     Ben grabbed his backpack and got out a notepad. “Alright, first off, the heater is broken. I think we’ve established that because I’m freezing my bum off here.”

     Laughs were exchanged. Dan was finding Ben quite a crafty character.

     “Management is working on that, but because this is one of the most cheaply rented buildings in all of London, that probably won’t be happening anytime soon. Also we’ve got another meeting here at six-thirty tonight, if you don’t come to that one as well, you suck… but really probably only Marcus will show up as he couldn’t take off work this morning and or wasn’t included in the massive group text about the ten-thirty meeting. Moment of silence for Marcus.”

     Ben bowed his head. Everybody stayed quiet, even though Dan would’ve laughed if he could, and everyone else would’ve too he guessed.

     Ben looked up. “Okay enough about Marcus, who cares about him- Charlie, my lover on occasion, get up here." 

     Charlie rolled his eyes and stood up, as did Ben.

      Ben grinned. “Hello Charlie.”

     “Hi Ben.”

     “What’s on the agenda for today?”

     “Well…”

     Charlie directed his gaze over to Dan, smiling.

     _Oh God_ , Dan thought. Suddenly he was clutching his right arm tighter.

     “We do have a new member this morning,” _shit_ , “Dan.”

     _Great, I’m screwed_.

     Charlie pointed at Dan, resulting in everybody focusing their attention on him. Dan felt as though he could fall apart right there, but he kept his composure.

     Ben turned to look at Dan as well, offering up a warm smile. “Hello Dan.”

     “He-” his voice sounded horse. He quickly cleared his throat, “Hello.”

      “Would you like to start out by introducing yourself? Its kind of one of those rights of passage things.” Ben offered.

      Dan looked at the group once again, all still staring at him. He swallowed his spit, and then directed his attention back at Charlie, who did a sort of “go ahead” motion.

      “Okay, well, where do I begin?”

      Charlie spoke up. “How about your age, where you’re from, what are your likes, dislikes?”

      Dan was shocked that Charlie didn’t recommend he share what he was actually in the group _for_. He was thankful for that, even though he’d had the basic idea of what he was going to say, which just meant he’d stumble over his words till he got to the point and he’d shed a few tears quite possibly.

      Dan nodded, and took a deep breath. “Okay. My name is Dan, I think we’ve got that established.”

      Various short laughs emerged. _They like the sarcasm_ , Dan thought, smirking.

      “I’m twenty, I’m from Wokingham in Berkshire, and I like music, preferably Kanye West and Muse which might tell you a bit about my music tastes as they are wide, and going on the Internet. Essentially my life right now.”

      People laughed again. He was doing well.

      “As for things I don’t like… I don’t like rude people, that’s for sure, and I also don’t like audience participation, so if you think about that, you’d pretty much realize how I’m doing internally at this point.”

      No one had found that very funny. There expressions all looked a little sad as well. Dan’s smile faded, realizing his sarcastic sense of humor had failed.

      He heard a single chuckle then. _I stand corrected; someone got the joke_.

      It was a bright one, even though the tone was low, and Dan looked about the circle to find the person.

      His eyes fell upon a guy; posture low in seat, long legs out in front, choppy jet black hair parted to the right side of his face.

      As soon as their eyes met, the guy’s laughs ceased.

      Dan immediately looked down to avoid eye contact.

      The mood in the room was awkward, so Dan took back to talking.

      “That’s about it…” He mumbled

      At that point Dan thanked God for Ben, as he beamed and took the group back.

      “Alright snaps and claps for Dan everybody, snaps and claps.”

      Everyone did their snaps and claps, some whooping too. Dan would be lying if he said that it didn’t make him feel good.

      “Welcome to the group.” Ben said, holding out his hand.

      Dan stuck his hand out, expecting a shake, but instead Ben pulled him right out of his chair and into an embrace.

      Dan began to laugh, and returned the hug.

      “Okay that’s enough of that.” Charlie said, as they broke apart. Dan took his seat again.

      “Someone jealous?” Ben asked.

      “Never,” Charlie rolled his eyes, “Shall we get onto our activity for today?”

      “Yes, yes, Charlie do you mind handing me my bag?”

      Charlie did as he was asked.

      “Today I thought it’d be a good idea if we worked with,” Ben opened the bag and took out some packages, “Clay!”

     _Clay? Is this a crafting class_ , Dan wondered. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting to do today at all.

     Ben continued. “Charlie if you’d be so kind to open up the packets,” Charlie nodded, “Anyways, how many of you often feel like it’s very hard to convey what you’re feeling on the inside to the outside? As if words can’t quite explain it?”

      Everybody practically raised their hand, Dan included. Dan could never tell anybody what he was feeling 98% of the time. It was only to his therapist that he’d admitted what his problem was, actually said it out loud.

    “Okay, so even though you might not be able to express those thoughts in words, you might be able to express them in other ways. If you can say a picture is worth a thousand words, then what can a sculpture do? Let’s find out.”

     Charlie and Ben then proceeded to pass out a small ball of clay to each person.

      This was all very intriguing to Dan. He’d never thought about this as being something that a group of this sort could do. He supposed Ben was just different, or at least that was one way to put it.

     Charlie and Ben made their way back to their side of the circle. “Okay, so now that everyone has their clay, let’s begin. We’ll start off light and then get progressively deeper.” Ben said, own ball of clay in his hand as well.

     _Deeper?_ Dan pondered.

     Charlie spoke next. “Alright, mold the last thing you saw before you went to bed yesterday.”

     Dan thought about this. Last thing he saw? Probably his computer, as he was practically always on it. He went to work, molding a square shape and then drawing little details with his nail.

      As soon as it seemed everyone was done, Charlie spoke up again. “Who’d like to tell us what they’ve made?”

      Dan instantly saw Chris’ hand shoot up.

      Charlie looked hesitant. “Fine, Chris, what have you done?”

     Chris smirked, and held up his sculpture. It appeared to be some kind of strange, flat, blob with three balls on it.

      “Now the next thing someone has to do is guess what it is.” Ben voiced.

      “Is it a phone?” The brunette Chris and the other guy had been talking to earlier, questioned.

     “No Louise, honestly I’m not that hooked.” Chris retorted, annoyed.

      Louise stuck her tongue out at that comment.

     “Is it that creepy wig that you wear at your shows?” A girl with hot pink hair asked.

     “Emma, psh, I lock that thing up at night. Are you coming to my next gig per chance?”

     Emma clicked her tongue and gave him thumbs up.

     “Oh, is it a video game controller?” The other guy, who was sitting right next to Chris by the way, asked.

     “For fucks sake PJ, how do you not recognize your own face?”

     PJ stared at him, eyebrows drawing together.

      Chris looked down at his clay creation. “But yeah you’re right- Ben, what if I’m just a really bad sculptor?”

      “Chris it’s not about being artistic, it’s about conveying thing’s to an audience through visuals.” Ben responded.

      “What if my conveying looks like crap?”

      Ben put his head in his hand. “Moving on Chris, Charlie what’s next?”

      Charlie cleared his throat. “Next, sculpt the first thing you saw this morning.”

      Alarm clock was what immediately came to Dan’s head. He tried to sculpt a trapezoid, but it didn’t turn out like he planned, instead looking like a weird triangle. Dan frowned. He was never very good at art anyway, except for when he occasionally drew those video game characters in his school days.

      “Okay, who would like to go now?”

      This time, the Carrie girl with really curly hair raised her hand. Dan nearly missed the closed-mouth grin that appeared on Chris’ face.

 

***

     They continued doing the activity, progressively adding things about feelings to the mix of things to sculpt, but none of the volunteers ever had very emotional things.

      Dan never raised his hand. His things were always too depressing for him to share.

     Ben began to speak for the first time in a while, as Charlie had been giving all of the topics. “Kay, for this next one, I want each of you to sculpt what you feel when you think about the future.”

       _The future_ , well if that thought didn’t already disturb Dan enough to a degree, how was he supposed to represent it?

      When Dan _used_ to think about the future, he’d often see a dark void with some light at the end of the tunnel. Now it’s all pitch black. At least when Dan was younger he used to have at least some hope things would get better; now he has next to none.

     He decided to just mold what he could.

     “Everybody done?” Ben asked. Everybody nodded, “Cool, now were going to go around the group; _everyone’s_ going to share.”

     Dan felt his stomach sink. _This is going to be great_.

     “Also after someone guesses the correct thing, talk about why you imagine your future this way. Charlie pick a starting point.”

      Charlie scanned the group. “Let’s start with Jim here and go clockwise.”

     That meant Dan would be last. _Super_.

     They continued going around in the group, guessing each other’s creations and then talking about them.

     Dan listened on as everyone shared. He was still listening of course, but his mind began to, once again, space.

     It wasn’t until Emma started talking about her sculpture that Dan’s attention got fully refocused.

     “… And the reason that I made the dove, which symbolizes freedom, is because this is the first time, in a super long time… I actually feel _free_. Up until last week, actually, even though I’ve been sober for almost a year now, I always envisioned my future with crack in it. Until last week I didn’t realize that I’ll never smoke crack again, and last week… I realized I was okay with it.”

     It was the first time in the day that Dan heard someone mention an addiction or their sobriety. He thought Emma was brave for sharing that, strong for fully accepting her sobriety as well. Dan’s thoughts started wandering towards himself, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and refocused on the group.

     Ben led them all in the snaps and claps for Emma, congratulating her on coming to terms and finding solace with her sobriety. Emma beamed, and got up to accept Ben and Charlie’s hugs.

     When the group was settled, sharing continued. Everyone seemed optimistic for the future.

     Dan couldn’t figure out how they remained hopeful for the long term while Dan couldn’t have hope in himself for more than five seconds.

     After Carrie finished up, Dan knew it was his turn. The pit in his stomach only grew.

     “Oh, I, uh, did this.”

     Dan hesitantly held up his clay creation. He’d created a simple circle, the center hollowed out.

     “Is it a ring?” Asked Carrie, “Do you wish to get married?”

     Dan shook his head. Even if he did want to get married someday, it wouldn’t necessarily be his main focus at that point in his life.

     “Is it a like halo, some sort of angel symbol, maybe?” Questioned this guy named Alfie.

     Again, Dan shook his head no. No one was going to guess it, he’d figured, and frankly he wouldn’t really want them to.

     “It’s emptiness.” He heard that low voice in his ears again.

     He looked up for the second time that day and found the tall guy with black hair. Once again, their eyes met. Dan’s eyes widened at his answer. This guy had gotten it right.

     “What?” Dan asked in an almost-whisper.

     “The circle; it’s supposed to symbolize emptiness, isn’t it?” The guy with black hair cocked his head to the side a bit. His face looked sad and a bit distraught.

     Dan didn’t want to respond, so he just adverted his eyes, looked down, and gave a nod.

     “Why is it empty Dan?” Charlie asked.

     Dan shrugged. “I-” He didn’t want to lie, “I guess I feel that I don’t have much to look forward to right now, is all.”

     That was the modified, less depressing answer that Dan had come up with. Dan decided it was enough of the truth that he was willing to share.

     “Well, consider the following,” It was Ben who spoke now, “At least you have this meeting being over to look forward to.”

     That earned some “hey’s” and a couple of laughs, but Dan didn’t find it all that funny.

     Ben’s smile dropped when he saw Dan. “But look Dan, in all seriousness, I don’t know you all that well, or what you’ve been through, but I do know that it’s never to late for to change. Think about things that you can do for yourself that _will_ make you have something to look forward to. Sometimes changing your outlook on something can go a long way. Even though it may get tough, sometimes a positive outlook is the best thing for you. The future is what _you_ make it, so it’s your job to make it a good one. Same goes for the rest of the group.”

     Dan wished he could think positively, he _truly_ did, but he couldn’t believe that he could make himself happy. Dan was thankful that the group leader was someone as wise and insightful as Ben, but Dan would be lying to himself if there were a part of him that didn’t think “ _that’s_ _bullshit_. _”_

     Nonetheless, Dan put on a happy face for Ben. “Thanks Ben, I’ll try my hardest.”

     He just didn’t think it would work.

 

***

     After Ben had wrapped up the meeting, he dismissed everyone to go get after meeting tea and those biscuits and Krispy Kream’s Charlie had been talking about earlier. 

     Dan just sat in his seat watching as everyone got up to leave him, Charlie included.

     Speaking of Charlie, the shorter man had begun to talk to Jim while he got himself some tea. It was understandable; Dan knew Charlie wouldn’t only talk to him, but Dan had felt that he’d lost someone.

     Dan was now the only one sitting down. That familiar uncomfortable feeling began to sink in, and Dan began to rub his arm and bounce his leg up and down.

     He decided that it would be best if he just left. Besides, he had promised that he’d get home as soon as the meeting ended.

     Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone sit down in the chair on his right.

     “Hey, want one?” It was Chris.

     Dan looked up at him. He was holding out a donut on his pointer finger.

     Dan opened his mouth to speak. “I-”

     “Here, you’re going want this donut.” Chris dropped the donut into his hand.

     Dan didn’t know why Chris’ persistence made him smile, but it did.

     “Thank you.”

     “No problem. I’m Chris, by the way.”

     “Yeah I got that.” Chris laughed

     “I see, _Dan_.” He smirked. Dan laughed. He felt himself and Chris’ humor was fairly similar.

     Suddenly, PJ was plopping down in the chair next to Chris, tea and biscuits in his hands.

     “Jesus, if it was any colder in here than it is now, I’d turn into a Yeti,” He noticed Dan, “Hello.” He offered a smile.

     “Want me to warm you up?” Chris asked PJ, leaning out to swipe his tongue against PJ’s cheek.

     PJ leaned back, dodging it. Chris made an offended face.

     “Fine then,” PJ turned to Dan, green eyes landing on him, “Hi, PJ.” He held out his hand, which Dan shook.

     “Dan.”

     “Getting formal aren’t we PJ… Sexy PJ.” Chris winked. PJ blushed.

      Dan wondered if there was something going on between the two of them, but he didn’t want to ask after just meeting the two of them.

     “PJ, is that short for anything?” Dan asked, taking a bite of his donut. Chris was right; he did need it.

     “Yeah, but I can’t tell you.” PJ responded. A cunning smile appeared on his face as he sipped at his tea. 

     “Why?”

     “That’s confidential my friend.”

     “He’d probably have to kill you also.” Chris threw in.

     Dan raised his eyebrows.

     “Moving in,” Louise then sat down on Dan’s left, “Ello, I’m Louise.” She smiled, revealing a gap between her two front teeth.

     “Hi.” Dan replied. He moved his left arm closer to him. She was just a bit too close to it for Dan’s comfort.

     “So what are we talking about?” Louise questioned.

     “Politics.” PJ answered.

     “Ugh, how dry.”

     “Not when it’s about Prince William. I heard Kate Middleton’s pregnant.” Chris chimed in.

     “Everyone hears that rumor like every week.” Louise retorted.

     “Who knows, maybe it’s true this time,” Chris turned around to look at the table, while PJ mumbled something about the Queen needing to announce things, “Phil, hurry up, we can’t wait for you forever!” 

     Dan looked where Chris was looking. It was the black fringe guy, coming over to join the small four-person powwow with his goods and tea.

     “Sorry, sorry, I was looking for coffee but they had none so I had to settle for strong tea.” Phil rambled off in one go.

     He brought a chair around so now they were in a kind-of circle. Dan was pretty much face to face with Phil for the third time that day.

     Dan coughed. “H- hey.” _Making the first move this time, nice Dan_. Dan thought to himself.

     “Hey.” Phil replied.

     It was then that Dan noticed that Phil’s eyes were an absolutely brilliant blue, with specks of yellow and green. They were some of the beautiful eyes Dan had really ever seen. 

     He had to force himself away even though he wanted to just stare at Phil’s eyes all day.

     “Now we all know each other, great,” PJ did a few claps, “So Dan, what’d you think of your first day at the group?”

     Dan thought about it, trying to put all his thoughts into a sentence.

     “I liked it.” _That was pathetic Dan_.

     “That’s good, love. Glad you enjoyed it.” Louise said to him gleefully.

     “I do, though, have a question.” Dan said tentatively

      “What’s that?” Louise asked.

     “Does Ben like, y’know, not make you share your…?” Dan trailed off there, not wanting to say it.

     “Things about your addiction?” PJ asked. Dan nodded, “No, he doesn’t. It’s your decision what you want to share with the group and when, and what you’re comfortable with sharing. I think that’s important to Ben." 

     “Why is it so important to Ben?” Dan wondered.

     PJ answered “He’s told me that he’d gone to too many groups where he’d been forced to come out and share things that he didn’t want to. Like it wasn’t the right time for him. He felt pressured. This group isn’t about pressuring to open up about your addiction. It’s about doing exercises and activities, talking about emotions and feelings and addiction and sobriety and your own story. Everyone’s different; we’re all ready to share at our own pace.”

     Dan understood all of this. It would really suck if you had to share your addiction story to a random group of people on the first day, which was what he thought this group was going to be about for the past three weeks. Dan didn’t, however, know when he’d be able to share his story. He didn’t know if he _ever_ could be able to do that.

     Dan brought himself back to conversation at hand. “So have you all shared yours?”

     PJ, Phil, and Chris nodded while Louise said “some”.

     “We’ve all been here for quite a while.” PJ said.

     Louise spoke up. “Indeed. Well, Phil was here first, then came PJ, then me, and finally Chris, which you came about, what, six months ago?”

     “Yeah, been a while hasn’t it?” Chris responded.

     “Time flies when you’re having fun.” PJ said to him.

     “Time flies when you’ve got a sexy PJ with you.” Chris made sultry eyes, and licked his lips. Everyone laughed.

     Chris mouth had opened slightly more, and it was then that Dan finally noticed something. Chris’ teeth were yellow. How’d he miss that before? This must be why Chris never showed his teeth when he smiled or anything.

     Chris caught him staring before Dan could look away. Dan felt bad 

     “What?” Chris asked Dan, “Something in my teeth?” Chris looked at him very seriously.

     Dan looked at him in almost horror. “No- Oh God, I’m so sor-”

     “I’m fucking with you, it’s fine, and I know I’ve got shitty teeth.” Chris smiled, allowing Dan to see all of his teeth. They were terrible; Dan wasn’t going to lie.

     “Sorry.” Dan apologized for no reason.

     Chris put his teeth back behind his gums. “Not your fault mate. Meth, that’s what it’ll do to you.”

      _Meth_. Chris had been a meth addict.

      “I am working on getting a new set though, been saving up to go to NHS. In the mean time, I just use this flipper that PJ gave me for work and such. He’s so good to me.” Chris touched PJ on the arm.

     “I do what I can, and I do what I do, so I do you.” PJ bit his lip. Chris looked down, noticeably turning pink. Dan, again, questioned the status of their relationship.

     “Speaking of work, Dan, I’ve got this gig on Friday at Outside the Box club around eight. Lot’s of people from the group are going to come, and so are these guys, and it’ll be a jolly grand time. Would you like to come?” Chris asked Dan.

     Dan was being invited, to a _club_? Dan could hardly remember the last time he’d been invited to a club. It’d probably been months ago when he was in a haze, back with his ex-friends in Manchester.

     Chris must’ve liked Dan enough to ask him to come, well either that or he felt sorry for him. Dan hoped it was the former, because Dan liked Chris a lot.

     Dan didn’t know whether or not he should go, or if he could go. Once he even mentioned the word “club” to his parents, they’d outlaw him from ever attending one of these groups again and banish him to his room forever. 

     It was weird Dan even had to ask his parents permission. Just a few months ago he’d been living with some roommates on his own, choosing to do whatever he wanted, whenever the hell he wanted. Obviously not all those choices were good choices or he wouldn’t be sitting where he was now.

     He gave his honest answer. “I’ll have to see what I’m doing. I hope I can make it, though.”

     “Okay, no pressure, it’s just going to be severely epic and you don’t want to miss it.” Chris told Dan.

     “So what’s the gig? You play music?” Dan questioned. He decided now would be a good time to finish off his donut, so he did. 

     Chris allowed himself another closed-mouth grin. “No, that’s actually PJ’s area of expertise. He can play, like, any instrument.”

     “Not true, and you know it,” PJ retorted, “Chris does comedy shows, by the way.”

     Sounded very Chris like to Dan. “Comedy? Sounds fun.” Dan commented.

     “It really is, Chris is pretty much a comedic genius,” Louise gushed, “He has this one character called-”

     “And all will be revealed this Friday night!” Chris interrupted.

     PJ looked over to Phil. “Phil, you’ve been awfully quiet, are you okay dude?”

     “Huh?” Phil looked from his tea, “Sorry, I guess I was just spacing out there.”

     Dan nodded in understanding. That is what he did all the time, after all. “Understandable happens to me all the time.”

     “Really?” Phil questioned.

     Dan shrugged. “Yeah, like I’ll just be sitting there and I’ll start spacing out and thinking about everything that has nothing to do with what I’m doing. Like the world ending, even though that could happen at like anytime, couldn’t it?”

     “That’s like me, but I think about cats or aliens or something.” Dan chuckled. _That’s pretty cute_ , Dan thought.

     Dan had always known he was attracted to girls _and_ guys. If you’d ask him what his sexuality was, he’d tell you he was bisexual. That was certain.

     It was also certain that Dan found Phil attractive. Dan thought that his eyes were brilliant, his hair looked wonderful to touch. He just thought Phil was... Attractive.

     Dan checked his phone. It read 11:42. Dan would have to get home soon.

     He made a move to stand. “I should probably get going. It’ll take me about an hour and forty-five minutes to get home.”

     “Okay, it was wonderful to meet you love, hope to see you around again, yeah?” Louise asked.

     Dan smiled at her. “It was awesome to meet you guys too. Chris, I’ll try and make it to your show on Friday, okay?”

     “You better.” Chris smirked.

     Dan waved one last goodbye to them all, and one to Charlie on his way out, before he exited the room and was back out into the hallway again. 

     Somehow, that bleak room didn’t seem so bleak anymore. He felt himself loosen the grip slightly on his right arm. 

     Dan walked to out to the front of the building, getting ready to cross the street. The sky looked just as lit up as when he’d got there. 

     Behind him he heard a door shut and feet walking.

     “Dan?” He heard a voice. It was Phil’s.

     He turned to see Phil standing there.

     Phil gave a small wave. “Uh, you dropped these.” 

     Dan looked at his hand. It was his box of Tic-Tac’s. They must’ve fallen out of his jacket pocket.

     Dan took the box from him, feeling Phil’s hand against his. It was warm, probably from the tea he’d been drinking, and it felt nice against Dan’s freezing cold one.

     “Thank you.” Dan stuck the Tic-Tac’s in his jacket pocket.

     “No problem," Phil looked down at his feet and coughed,"Well, it was really great to meet you today and all, Dan.”

     Dan felt a tiny pull in his chest. “It was great to meet you too, Phil.” 

     Phil nodded and smiled. They stood there for a few seconds, not saying anything. It didn’t feel so terrible and awkward as some of their encounters earlier, though 

"So do you think you'll return to here?” Phil asked after a little bit. 

     “Oh, um, I don't know yet." Dan responded.

     “Oh," Dan could hear something Phil's voice, was it... Disappointment? "Well, it'd be awesome if you came back and all. And there's also Chris' gig, you know?"

     Phil wanted him to continue coming? And why though? He was Dan; boring, lame, completely disfunctional, and yet somehow, Phil wanted to see him again.

     “Yeah, I'll think about it." Phil smiled. Dan felt warm inside.

     Phil was then turning around to back inside. “I’ll see you later, Dan.”

     “See you Phil.” Dan watched as Phil disappeared back into the drab building, and he turned back to the crosswalk, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets and playing with the Tic-Tac’s in there.

      He felt a smile make its way onto his face.

      Maybe this group wasn’t such a bad thing after all. 


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people! Lives_on_chai reporting. Sorry 'bout the wait, but here is chapter three. More Dan action/background info in this chapter.  
> As per usual, comment if you'd like, thanks for the kudos and all.  
> Enjoy!

3

 

     The days following the meeting for Dan were how his days usually went; uneventful.

     He’d fallen back into the same routine: get up, eat breakfast, lounge around, go on the internet, eat lunch, go to work, come home, have awkward dinner with parents, go on the internet again, and go to bed. Repeat for the next day.

     Dan had been thinking a lot about “the group” lately as well. Even though he hadn’t told anyone there, he really liked going to the Monday meeting.

     Come to think of it, that’s what he’d told his parents at Monday’s dinner.

     When his mum had asked how it went, Dan had said something like “It was great.” Simple.

     “What did you talk about?” His dad half-asked. His dad hadn’t spoken to Dan much recently, something Dan both resented yet understood.

     “Interpreting feelings and stuff. We used clay.”

     His mum raised her eyebrows. “That sounds pretty fun, don’t you think honey?” She asked Dan’s dad.

     His dad had been staring at his oh-so interesting knife for the past few seconds. “Huh? Oh, yeah, that sounds like a grand time, Dan.”

     _Grand_? _The hell did that come from._ Dan thought. Since when had his dad started using words like _grand_?

     “You think you’ll go back?” His mum questioned.

     “Yeah, I think I will.” Dan smiled, and his mum smiled back. And that was all that needed to be said.

    Dan hadn’t mentioned it other than that. He hadn’t mentioned Chris’ gig to them at all. It was pointless to do so anyway, really. He hadn't thought about it at the time, but Dan had to go to work Friday evening.

     Dan’s part time job at Tesco consisted of him manning the cash register from the hours of one to seven everyday. If he got off at seven, and it was over an hour trip to London, so there was no way he could make it in time. This thought made Dan supremely disappointed.

    The reality about work was that it was a terrific bore for him. He couldn’t do much except stand there, pop Tic-Tac’s as if they were his life source, and occasionally talk to his co-workers.

     His only release was when he had his break, then he could go out back, get some air, and listen to some pump-up rap, getting ready to complete the last few hours of his job.

     He hadn’t wanted to get this job, but his parents somehow thought it could teach him a thing or too. Plus, he could use the money. He just prayed to God everyday that this job wouldn’t end like his only two other previous jobs had; he'd get fired.

     In Dan had only had three "real" jobs in his life though; all at stores and all not going anywhere.

     Up at Manchester, Dan had been studying for a law degree; the only reason being, is because he didn’t know what to do with his life and being a lawyer was a seemingly honorable profession that got paid high.

     That clearly hadn’t gone as planned.

     For the time being, however, Dan was perfectly _okay_ with working his five-hour job at Tesco’s.

     _Okay_ , being the key word.

     So Dan let out a heavy sigh, and continued to think about the group, and the gig he couldn’t go to, and nothing and everything all at once, and the Tic-Tac’s he was swirling around in his mouth- till it hit him, that at that precise moment he, actually, _was_ at work.

     “Boy?!” _And_ he had a customer.

     “O-oh, sorry mam’.” The older woman looked utterly annoyed. _Way to go Dan_ , Dan scolded himself, “I’ll ring you up now.”

     She grumbled something unintelligible, as Dan checked her items of laundry detergent and potpourri.

     “That will be, uh, nine pounds even. Would you like a bag?” The woman handed him a ten, and grabbed her items.

     “No, boy, I’m alright.” She proceeded to walk out of Tesco, leaving Dan flabbergasted.

     “Didn’t even get to say ‘have a nice day.’” Dan mumbled.

     Of course he had to deal with rude customers before, but he always reminded himself to be polite. After all, he didn’t know what was going on in people’s lives to make them act horrible towards himself.

     Dan took a gander at the store. It was fairly empty, but seeing as it was a Thursday afternoon, that was understandable. Everyone was at work; just like Dan was come to think of it.

     Dan heard as someone approached him from behind. He turned, seeing one his co-workers, Angel. At the moment, only he and Angel were working the registers. “Ay Dan.”

     “Hi, Angel.” Dan had known Angel for about a month now, and he thinks it was safe to say that she was an… interesting person.

     She moved her violet hair out of her face. _Wasn’t it green, like, yesterday_? Dan questioned. “How’s it going?” She smacked her gum. Dan cringed.

     “I’m alright, how are you?” He tried not to look at her snakebite piercings, which he remembered she’d gotten two weeks previously. The surrounding area had begun to turn red from infection. Dan grimaced. He hoped Angel knew about that.

     She leaned against the station’s counter. “I went to this party ‘round Oxford last night and we got completely hammered and Taylor, one of these lads that’d been hanging around, jumped off the porch and we all had to take ‘im to the hospital ‘cause he fractured his ankle. So we stayed at the hospital, totally pissed, till like four o’ clock this morning and I had to take the bus home and left my car there.”

     That was another thing about Angel; she just poured out everything for you, even the things you didn’t want to hear.

     Dan just nodded. How was he supposed to respond to that? “Right, so wild night there?”

     “Yeah," She paused, "Okay, I’m heading out.” Angel let her arms up off the counter.

     “Wait, where are you going? It’s your shift?” Dan asked, confused.

     “Yeah, I’ve gotta go pick up my car and there’s hardly no one here so I’m leavin’. It’ll be fine, Georgia should be in here anyways soon for her shift.” She quickly grabbed her purse from her station.

     “Did you tell Maury about this?” Maury was their boss.

     “Maury don’ give a shit,” Angel shrugged, “Plus, I think I’m going to ask them to cut my hours.”

     “Why?”

     She grinned. “Actually been considering going back to Uni.”

     Dan was a little taken a back. Angel had repeatedly stated that Uni wasn’t her thing, saying she’d rather work than get more education. He had no idea where this sudden change was coming from. “That’s- I’m happy for you, if that’s what you want to do then you should do it.”

     “Yeah, thanks a lot Dan. See you tomorrow.” She let out one last smile, and went out the door.

     Angel was sometimes a little too “too much information,” but she was fairly personable and never a massive prick so Dan liked her alright. He also thought her hair and thought her piercings were cool; minus those reddened snakebites that she desperately needed to tend to.

     Dan was alone again. He rubbed his right arm and eyed his Tic-Tac’s, grabbing the candies and popping some into his mouth. _This isn’t so bad_. Dan thought, glancing at a few things in the near empty store.

     “Dan?” A voice asked.

     Dan froze. _Shit_. He recognized that voice from somewhere, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

     Dan slowly looked up, dreading it.

     Who he finally saw was a tall, dirty blonde, brown-eyed guy with a few crooked bottom teeth and a look of surprise on his face.

     Dan’s eyed widened. “Zach?” He said, slightly confused.

     Zach broke out into a smile- putting down his items of Pepsi, various crisps, and java cakes down- and grabbing Dan’s hand to pull him in for a hug.

     “Oh!” Dan let out a sound. He felt uncomfortable. After all, he didn’t know Zach super well.

    They’d known each other for two whole years in secondary school and college. They’d been friends, but by association. They’d mainly hang out in large group settings together, going out to the pastures and drinking beer with there shared posses. He remembered some things about Zach; like that he was fairly vibrant, funny, talked about Spy movies a lot, and he was a year older than Dan.

     Most of Dan’s friends happened to be older than him in those days. They "took him in," as Dan would call it, because no one else wanted to hang out with the kind, articulate, semi-emo fourteen-year old kid.

     Now that he thought back to it, he wondered if those kids actually liked him or if they honestly just felt sorry enough for him to come drink with them in the local field and answer every question about sex he asked. That made Dan believe that he was very cool. The reality? He was anything but.

     The present came back to him as Zach pulled away from Dan’s body. Overall he looked the same, just a bit older and he now had the ability to grow facial hair.

     Zach adjusted the snapback on his head. “It’s great to see you mate, how’ve you been doing?”

     How had Dan been doing exactly? “O-oh, I’ve been, uh,” _get it out_ , “Doing fine.” He wasn't fine most of the time.

     “I thought you were up at Uni? Juliet told me you were going to, um,” he snapped his fingers, trying to remember, “Oh, Manchester! Was it?” Zach questioned.

     Fuck, _school_. That was the last thing Dan wanted to talk about. Dan gulped, he even felt a tiny bit nauseous. He grabbed his right arm. “Ye-yeah, I was up at Manchester.”

     “What happened, are you on break?”

     “Oh, um,” _Dan hesitated_ , “Yeah, I'm on break for a while.” .

    Zach nodded. “That's cool, bruv.”

     Dan had just lied to this guy twice in the past minute, and Zach bought it all.

     “So, uh, what have you been up to?” Dan asked, wanting to bring the attention off of himself. 

     “Oh, yeah, so I’m at Reading right now. Did anyone tell you that?” Dan shook his head. He also hadn’t spoken to any of his college friends in two years _._ Zach looked dismayed, “Oh, alright, well I’m finishing up my degree in video game design.”

     “Video games? That’s pretty fucking sick to be honest.” He didn’t even know Zach was into that sort of thing.

     Zach chuckled. “Yeah, it’s been fun. Not sure what I’m going to do with it afterwards, but I’ll look for things. Probably in London, y’know?”

     Dan nodded again. Dan had always wanted to live in London. It’s not like Wokingham was that far from London, but to actually _live_ in London would be awesome.

     Zach made a move to check his phone. “Uh, I should probably head out, could we check out my items please?”

     “Yeah, of course.” Dan had never seen anyone he knew at work, something he was very _grateful_ for. He was thankful he bumped into Zach, someone he hardly knew, as opposed to one of his other friend’s that he knew very well.

     “And your total comes to twelve twenty-five. Need a bag?”

     “No, I’ve got it- hey, would you possibly like to hang out sometime?

     Dan looked up at him. “Sorry?”

     “Like hang out, we could play video games at mine or watch a movie or something, y’know?”

     Well this was happening awfully fast for Dan. He hardly even knew Zach. Hell, in the two years they’d known each other, they _never_ hung out one-on-one. But Dan thought that this might be a good thing for him, that he might need this. Currently, he had no friends. He could use one right now.

     “Yeah, that sounds like a plan.” Dan responded.

     Zach smiled. “Cool mate. Could I, like, get your number?”

     “Oh, sure.” Zach handed Dan his phone, which Dan typed his digits into.

     Dan gave Zach his phone back. Zach smiled. “Thanks Dan, I’ll text you later, okay?”

     “Yeah, okay, sounds good. Bye Zach.” Dan replied.

     "See ya, Dan." Zach nodded for the last time before exiting.

     Dan looked through the Tesco doors as Zach got into his small car and drove away.

     Dan took a brief moment to analyze what just happened. “Jesus that was weird…” Dan muttered under his breath.

     At least he now had someone to potentially hang out with instead of just browsing the depths of the Internet all day and go to work.

     He saw his boss out of the corner of his eye walking towards him. “Dan!” _Good lord, what fucking now?_ Dan thought.

     Dan stared down at Maury. He was a little shorter than Dan, with thinning dark hair and these large, crazy eyes that never did much except read reports and look at security cameras all day… and maybe porn sites if he was alone for at least thirty minutes.

Angel had told him the last one as apart of another one of her TMI rampages, and it was something Dan did not want to think about

     At the end of the day, Maury wasn’t a totally unpleasant man to work for he was just… clueless and kind of creepy most of the time.

     “Hello Maury.” Dan calmly greeted.

     “Say, Dan, have you seen Angel around?” Maury asked, eyes wandering the store.

     Dan wanted to scoff, but he kept it to himself. “She left.”

     “Bullocks! Knew I shouldn’t have hired that girl,” _then why did you?_ “Anyway, something came up regarding your work hours tomorrow.”

     “What?” Dan asked reluctantly.

     Maury ran a hand through his hardly there hair and down his face. “So Ralph called me up today saying that he’s got a nasty case of food poisoning and he’s been up-chucking all day, so I let him take today off, but then he was all asking me for longer so I told him he could take a later shift tomorrow, so… you’re taking his shift tomorrow morning.”

     “At ten?” Maury nodded. Dan nearly let out an exasperating groan, “Maury, you didn’t even ask me first.”

     “What, like I have to?” Maury retorted hotly, “Not like you’ve got anything better to do, kid.”

     Dan would’ve taken great offense to that had it not actually been accurate.

     “Come on, it’ll be good for you. You get to get the complimentary coffee we’ve got in the mornings. And besides, you get _all_ tomorrow night off.”

     Dan paused, thinking about this. “Wait, I get tomorrow night off?”

     “Your shift ends at three instead of seven, so, yeah. Why, you gonna to get a hot date or something?”

     It’s as if fate had smiled upon Dan, or rather Ralph just ate some really bad shrimp, but either way, he could actually go to Chris’ gig tomorrow night.

     “Not exactly.” Dan said back to him, starting to smile.

     “Okay, well, I’ve got some… better things to do.” Maury trotted back to his office.

     Dan shook his head. Things weren’t so bad.

     “Can I get some of these?” He looked down to see a guy, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, with a box of “ultra large condoms.”

     If he could make it through the rest of the day, things could be looking up for the next day.


	4. 7/11/16 Electric Kid update: writing, comfortability, and what fanfiction means to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi. This will kind of be like a "my thoughts" as opposed to an actual short update, and I don't know if people do this on this site at all, but I am going to do it it anyways haha :D. If you would like to read my thoughts, please feel free to continue reading. If not, that's totally fine as well. Pardon if this all seems a bit scrappily (that a word?) written, I just felt like writing something about this subject at 12 am.  
> Enjoy!  
> **Disclaimer; any of the opinions in this essay-type-thing are exactly that, opinions. I am not trying to offend anyone these are just my thoughts, and I always try to look at things from every spectrum.

Hello to whoever is reading this! My names is lives_on_chai, and last year during the summertime I began to write a fanfiction (or "phanfiction") titled The Electric Kid, which is of course this fic. The story was about Dan Howell's struggle with substance abuse and how he goes to this wonderful group of people that have also struggled with alcohol and drugs and he really connects with like-minded individuals. The summary sums it up much better than I did just there, but that was the basic premise. I'm writing this to tell all of you that I will not be continuing this story. Some of you might have already predicted that, as I haven't updated in nearly a year, but for those of you who needed clarification and wanted to know if this story will be updated, I'm so sorry, but it will not be. I sort of wanted to write something like this for a while, but it was only after recently receiving a comment from a really sweet individual asking me if I was going to continue this story that I finally decided that I would. In this I am going to explain why I stopped writing this story, talk about writing fanfiction, feeling comfortable while writing, and about what fanfiction means to me. So sit tight, and read if you like, as I cover many many many points in this essay-type-thing. Here we go!

The reason I began writing this fanfiction was because I fell completely in love with Dan and Phil last summer. Head-over-heels in love with their content, them as individuals, I loved it all. Most of my summer I spent at home watching their videos. From those videos I got inspiration to write a fanfiction. Now I can not tell you how many D&P fanfictions I have read, but it has been far too many to count, but none of them were kind of about what I wanted to write. I wanted to delve into darker themes that I felt they showed in some of their videos (namely existentialism and depression) while throwing in a nice mix of comedic elements, but mostly the dark feel was what I was chasing after. Funnily enough, most of the fanfictions I write aren't the type I usually like to read, I wonder if anyone else experiences that. Also I hadn't written anything at that point in an awfully long, not even content using original characters, so I thought this would be a good exercise to warm myself back up again. 

So I quickly set up an account here, wrote the first chapter, and this story was born! I was so elated when I got my first view, and even more so when I got kudos and even a comment (that surprised me if I can recall). It made me want to continue not just for myself but for the people reading this story. So I imagined this world and how it would end, and I updated two more chapters, and then the summer was dwindling down and I just... stopped. I actually began to write the fourth chapter, but I thought it was pretty rubbish and I didn't know how to go on so I stopped writing. I was sure I'd come back to it eventually, but I continued to be really busy and never got to it. 

And then I just didn't feel the desire to.

And if I'm going to be completely and totally honest, which this is, it's honesty hour, I actually fell out of love with Dan and Phil as well. I had been totally invested in them for a whole nine months, and then one day I just... stopped. It felt like a whirlwind romance. And the strange thing is is that it stopped without me even knowing it. I didn't have time to watch their hour long gaming videos and I didn't know when they were uploading anymore because they got busy with tour and all, and truthfully I didn't really enjoy their newer content as much as I once had. These things happen, I personally just don't enjoy their newer content. I will, however, still watch some of their more older videos sometimes, and as a matter of fact Amazing Dan is probably one of my favorite videos ever. Besides that, I'm not bad mouthing Dan and Phil, I would not do that, they seem like great people in real life, they seem to care deeply for their viewers which I really admire, and as previously stated I still really enjoy some of their older content and they've really kind of help me figure out a few things about who I am as a person and I'm grateful to them for that.

So obviously one of the main motivators to stop writing was because I fell out of love with the people I was writing about, but I did feel compelled towards these personas if you will that I built for them (and I still really enjoy a lot of people's content in this), and I overall still felt a need to continue, but reflecting back on what I said about about their "real life" in the previous paragraph, this one thought that kept passing my mind was what really made me stop writing this fanfic; I was very uncomfortable with the thought of writing about real people. I understand that some people are able to separate reality from fiction, but I just couldn't do it. I don't want to get into the controversial topic of whether it's acceptable to ship and write fanfictions about real people this evening, but I will just say that even though I myself am not comfortable with writing it, or reading it either, if other people are able to separate those fantasy and reality barriers and don't shove the ships in front of the people they ship or mention it to them, then it seems alright. Anyways, opinions on those things, again not trying to bash anyone who partakes in real life shipping and fanfic writing/reading, of course I wrote a fanfiction concerning real life people at one point in time so I can understand the appeal, but I personally just do not feel comfortable partaking anymore in that side of the fandom world (if you can call it that). I hope that you can all respect my decisions.

Moving on to talking about actually writing and reading fanfiction and what fanfiction means to me and my journey with it. I guess you can say that what it all boils down to is that fanfiction has, surprisingly to me at least, been a large part of my life. I have actually been reading ever since I was about eight years old, starting with Hannah Montana, and have been writing it ever since I was eleven with iCarly. And look where I am now. I feel like this just turned into a confession, as I've never told anyone these things before and no one I know personally knows I'm even into fanfiction at all, let alone write it and read loads of it, but I figured that if there's anytime to talk about my fanficion endeavors it might as well be on a fanfiction website. It's far from defying who I am, but I'm not going to deny that on my non-busy days reading fanfiction probably occupies a large percent of my time. I have always seen it as a form of creativity and entertainment, ever since I was younger. Yes the characters are per-existing, but that doesn't mean that it limits the possibilities of what you can do with the characters by any means. They can go on new and exciting adventures, have angst, have happiness, have romance, have bromance, have girlmance, have non-canonical moments, it's all up to the fanfiction writer. It's also great practice to brush up on your writing skills if you haven't used them in a while. Along with those too, and what I wanted to get to, I believe that it's very important to feel comfortable with what you're writing as well. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't push yourself to be a better writer or possibly step out of your comfort zone once in a while, but overall if you're not comfortable with writing about a pairing that you've been writing about in the past or a certain genre or theme, then don't. It's interesting, I never thought about actually being comfortable with what I'm writing until the same commenter that helped kick off this whole thing actually pointed out to me told me that it is important to be comfortable with the content that you write and put out. Whatever your content may be, fanfiction or non, make sure you're putting it out for yourself, you're having fun writing it, and you're comfortable with what you're writing.

So I think this is a good place to wrap up this rather overlong sort of essay. I know I got off topic at the end there, but it's alright. So, overall to sum everything up, this is the end of The Electric Kid. I'm sorry to have ended it if those of you were excited to read more of it, but I hope you can respect my decision to end it. I just want to say thank you so much to all who commented, gave kudos, and supported this story by reading it, I appreciate it all so much.. The kind words that people wrote about my writing style has actually inspired me to begin writing stories with my own original characters, which I haven't done in a very long time. I may feel inspired one of these days to write a fanfiction about fictional characters, who knows what the future may hold. If any of you like X-Men, there's a good chance it'll probably be X-Men related so that is something to look forward to.

Thank you all so much for reading this, I know it was quite long, but if you stuck with it till the end, you're dope!

This is goodbye for now, adios all,

-lives_on_chai


End file.
